


Secrets Enough for Two

by tuesday



Category: His Face All Red (Webcomic), His Face All Red - Emily Carroll
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blood, Character Death, Comes Back Wrong, Cryptids, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Family, Guilt, Horror, Identity Porn, Incest, Kissing, M/M, Monsters, Murder, Necrophilia, Other, POV First Person, Psychological Horror, Sibling Incest, Storytelling, Trick or Treat: Challenge Yourself, Trick or Treat: Trick, Unreliable Narrator, creepy forests
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 04:15:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16032779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/pseuds/tuesday
Summary: I dreamed again of that night.  I dreamed of him turned away, then turning toward me.  His face was red—his cheeks, his chin, his mouth.  There, deep in the dark of that hole, I touched his stiff shoulders, his sticky cheeks.  I brushed the dirt from his hair and whispered secrets into a dead man's mouth.  There, deep in the dark of those woods, no one could hear me.  No one could judge.  A dead man tells no tales, and that grave held secrets enough for two.Was this my brother?Was this his ghost?Was this the monster, prepared to swallow me whole?





	Secrets Enough for Two

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venomspitting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venomspitting/gifts).



> Thank you to rosefox for your help! Any and all mistakes and strange choices remaining are entirely my own.

I dreamed again of that night. I dreamed of him turned away, then turning toward me. His face was red—his cheeks, his chin, his mouth. There, deep in the dark of that hole, I touched his stiff shoulders, his sticky cheeks. I brushed the dirt from his hair and whispered secrets into a dead man's mouth. There, deep in the dark of those woods, no one could hear me. No one could judge. A dead man tells no tales, and that grave held secrets enough for two.

Was this my brother?

Was this his ghost?

Was this the monster, prepared to swallow me whole?

His face was red. His lips were cold. He tasted of iron and rotting meat. I loved him. I loved him.

When I woke, my mouth was full. Red spilled from my lips to stain the pillow. The morning light was bright through my open window, and muddy marks and footprints trailed from the sill to the edge of my rumpled sheets. Dirt crowded under my fingernails. My hands needed washing.

Swallowing roughly, I rose to face the day.

 

  
In the daylight, I visited my brother's cottage, with its hawthorn tree and lilac bush. In greeting, I kissed his plump, young wife on one soft, round cheek. She invited me in, smiling with her mouth and with her starry eyes, like we were family—like she had every day since the night I killed my brother. We visited a while, as families are wont to do. My brother was out, but she welcomed me. Her eyes were stars. Her stomach was curved, swelling gently each day with new growth. She claimed to be happy. Her eyes watched me, bright, unyielding as some distant sun.

She was my brother's wife. She loved him. She loved him.

(They say he loved her, too.)

Outside, in the fields at the edge of the woods, a man with my brother's face mended fences. He still had sheep to protect—or, at least, to momentarily hold.

 

  
After dark, after the tap ran dry and the tavern turned out its patrons into the night, I returned home—alone, as I always am. My fellow patrons paid me little mind. My brother's face, as ever, was turned away. I only caught sight of the back of his fine, blue coat, glimpses in profile of his pointed chin and pale, chapped mouth. His eyes were cast in shadow. They hid from me.

I returned home. I locked the door, as anyone should when they live by a field at the edge of the woods. The monster was dead—my brother had killed it—but many strange things come from the woods. (I should know.)

I climbed into a bed draped with crisp sheets and laundered bedding. My pillow smelled of lilac and pine. I didn't sleep. I couldn't.

The monster was dead, so what was killing my brother's sheep?

 

  
I dreamed again of that night—and of other things. It was not real. None of it was real. It couldn't be.

(It hurt too much.)

A man with my brother's face climbed in my bedroom window. His eyes were bright. His hands were covered in dirt. His chin was pointed, and his mouth was red. His lips were cold as he whispered secrets into my mouth. He tasted of iron and rotting meat. He tasted of regret and joy. He loved me. He loved me.

I closed my eyes and let myself dream.


End file.
